


Mon Cher Maxime

by dreamofroses



Category: French History RPF, French Revolution RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-03
Updated: 2018-07-03
Packaged: 2019-06-04 17:06:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15151724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamofroses/pseuds/dreamofroses
Summary: Alexis has had a crush on Maximilien Robespierre since high school, but it was impossible because he'd been dead for more than two hundred years. Things are different now that he has inexplicably traveled to 21st century Paris and gotten himself stuck.





	Mon Cher Maxime

**Author's Note:**

> This can be taken as a standalone piece, but it is a splinter from my "Maxime" universe about Maximilien Robespierre traveling to the future. I began that story here, then decided it had to be completely re-worked. This is all that survives of Version 2.0 but I liked it well enough to share. Perhaps it will eventually find it's way into a Version 3.0, but, for now, enjoy. :)

I remember the moment I encountered him for the very first time. I was in the tenth grade. It was January, not long after the end of the holiday break. The end of the first semester (who’s ending did not correlate with the holiday break, to my eternal confusion) was fast approaching and we were on the last unit in my World History class. I did not have a zero hour (an extra class taking place before the standard start time for school, not detention) that year and I had a luxurious amount of time before my first class because, living outside of the school district, my bus driver mother brought me to school before she went to work. It was during this time that I read the sections of my history textbook assigned each day—provided I did not get distracted—because the book was so heavy that I refused to carry it home. 

The topic for the final unit of the semester was the French Revolution. This subject interested me particularly because I was finishing my first semester of French and had persuaded myself that I was in love not only with the language but also with the culture and the history, although I had very little knowledge of either. This ensured that I was to read the textbook section on the French Revolution. The section was vague and superficial. I have very little memory of what it said but I know that I had to relearn almost everything about the French Revolution when I reached the university level—what little I did not have to abandon was learned in the AP Western Civilization course I took my senior year of high school. I was struck mainly by the portraits of the significant figures. Most appeared old and stuffy or were over-dressed women (a subject that interested me only in passing at the time) but I could not take my eyes off of one portrait of a man who appeared younger (despite the peruke) than the others. 

The portrait was awash in warm brown tones (a color I objected to in principle but found, if not pleasing, arresting here). I was lost in his green eyes. Once I had gazed at the image long enough, I looked at the accompanying text. The man’s name was Maximilien Robespierre (1758-1794). I was enchanted. I adored both the letters X and R and long names (the words being composed of many letters, not a string of various parts) had an air of elegance in my mind and elegance was the essence of Frenchness which was, in turn, the essence of everything agreeable to my sixteen-year-old mind. I then followed my habit of doing the math to determine the subject’s age at death. I created this habit to disabuse myself of any ideas about particularly handsome portraits. A handsome man was less handsome (to my sixteen-year-old sensibilities) when I knew that he had already lived to and died at, for example, eighty-six. I had already done this for Louis XVI, whom I did not find particularly handsome, and found him to have died at the (unacceptable to my sixteen-year-old mind) age of thirty-eight. I was displeased at this because I did not feel that a man who was executed had any business being so old. My cap age was thirty (cruel but true). So, I did the math. Thirty-six. My stomach dropped. I was very disappointed, almost beyond disappointed, approaching despair. I determined to turn the page and finish my reading. I continued to stare at the image. Was thirty-six really so old? It was less than forty. It was younger than my mother. At any rate, he didn’t look so very old. He didn’t live to be some ruined, wrinkled old man with a cane and no hair. He didn’t live to see his grandchildren or great-grandchildren be born. Was he even married? I preferred to think that he wasn’t. I contented myself with an image of thirty-six that more closely resembled twenty-six (if I had learned about Saint-Just at the time, there is the distinct possibility that I would have preferred him to Robespierre) or possibly even twenty. 

I returned to reading the passage and found the section on Robespierre. It was short and sweet. Robespierre was described as a provincial lawyer from Arras who went to Paris as a moderate and ended up a raving, maniacal tyrant who would execute anyone who looked at him the wrong way. I focused a moment on the first part. I did not have the slightest idea where Arras might be in France and the wording of the text led me to mistake province for Provence. I had just finished watching a film set in Provence and the rolling, green landscapes seemed like the perfect home for the man in the image. I imagined him innocent and wide-eyed coming to the bustling city of Paris, full of optimism. There he was warm-hearted and moderate (the book claimed that he was a Girondin) until the evil, scheming radicals got their claws into him and, due to his provincial naïveté, tricked him into changing sides and helping them eliminate the virtuous Jacobins (by now, you probably realize that the book had me quite confused about the actual events of the Révolution). He may have been a tyrant but there had to be more to the story than that. Surely, my sixteen-year-old brain insisted, he was being manipulated. After all, he was handsome and young and had beautiful green eyes. He was from lovely Provence and had an X in his name. 

Satisfied with my assessment of his innocence, I made my way to my first hour’s classroom, which was open by then—it happened to be World History. The teacher was within, preparing for the class. I happened to be the sort of student who had no problem striking up a conversation with the teacher (nerd, I know) and I did not anticipate the conversation lasting much time because my friends would arrive before long and I would have an easy way to escape. I noticed on her desk a paper emblazoned with a quote: “You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.” It seemed to me a remarkably curious statement to have on a paper as an important quote so I asked after it. My teacher explained that this was what Robespierre said to justify the Reign of Terror. The broken eggs were people’s heads being cut off by the guillotine. She continued that Robespierre was a horrible man who had no concept of the value of human life. He was like Hitler but he didn’t kill as many people. She was confident, however, that, given enough time, he might have. In her view, Robespierre’s bloodlust was insatiable. He didn’t simply have people executed because he was ambitious, he enjoyed causing death. I was horrified. This was my sweetheart? My dear, innocent lawyer from Arras? I couldn’t like such a man. That was like liking Hitler. My teacher had all but said so. No, I didn’t like him. He was a disgusting human being. He just so happened to have an amazingly attractive name. I adored the name Maximilien but it had nothing to do with Robespierre. That was simply an unfortunate coincidence. It wasn’t any different from liking the name Joseph despite the unfortunate connection to Stalin or the name Hideki regardless of its link to Tojo. I wasn’t quite content to hate Robespierre and like the name Maximilien but I settled for that opinion. 

Later that year, I was rereading Le Comte de Monte-Cristo (the English abridged version) and found my official “out”. Maximilian Morrel was just about the sweetest and most innocent character of the book. No one could conceivably fault me for liking him. Also, there was the convenient difference in spelling. No, I don’t like it with the “en”, that’s Robespierre and he’s evil. I like it with the “an”, that’s Morrel and he’s adorable. I managed to convince myself that Maximilian Morrel was indeed my favorite character, even though I was more drawn to Edmond or Franz or even Albert as characters. The next year, Robespierre was almost forgotten but Maximilian was not. I had to take home the stupid fake baby and I was determined to have a boy so that I could name it Maximilian with the “an”. As soon as I did so, I remembered Robespierre and found myself explaining to everyone who asked what I named the “baby” that it was Maximilian after the character from Le Comte de Monte-Cristo and not after Robespierre, the tyrant of the French Revolution. No one cared but I was terrified that I would be outed as an admirer of a dictator, which I most certainly was not. After I got rid of the “baby”, I got a car. In my family, it is tradition to name your car. My mother asked me what I wanted to name it after we purchased it. I immediately thought of Maximilian, but cars in my family are inherently female (or they were until my brother, Jimmy, got a Jimmy named Jimmy and my mother purchased a car she called Saito for Saito Hajime). I settled on Maxine because it was the closest thing I could think of to Maximilian and very apparently French (I was still in love with all things French, which worked as a cover for my secret obsession with the name of the French Revolutiono’s tyrant). 

Shortly thereafter, my French was at a level where I was confident to attempt reading Le Comte de Monte-Cristo in the original language. It turned out that my French was not that good and it took me another three years to finish the book in the original language but, as I paged lovingly through my French edition of the book, I discovered, to my horror, that Maximilian Morrel’s name had been altered for the English edition. In the original French, his name was Maximilien Morrel. Now where was my distinction between the tyrant’s name and the character's? How could I protest my innocence? It was truly the same name now. I altered my favorite name to Maxwell, declared my intention to name my future cat (a Maine Coon, hopefully) that and determined not to think about Maximilien anymore—but I would still assert that Maximilien Morrel was my favorite character from the book if asked (I never was) and I eventually grew to prefer the young Morrel over Edmond and Albert as I aged. 

I was successful in keeping myself from thinking about Robespierre for the next four years. I had a history class that covered the French Revolution but I do not recall any mention of Robespierre. Perhaps I was simply trying so hard to pay him no mind that I did not maintain the memory. Perhaps it is the tendency of history classes to focus on the first part of the revolution, leaving the second part, the part in which Robespierre became important, as a sort of bad memory. Whatever the case, I did not actively think of Robespierre again until I took my French capstone. The subject was the French Revolution. I was delighted. I could explore my unresolved feelings about Robespierre in a safe, academic setting. I could review the sources and prove to myself once and for all that he was a monster who needed to remain where he was in history and not in my head. Having spent three years taking far more classes on the Holocaust than was warranted, I was accustomed to facing the truly horrific in the sterile setting of the university classroom. 

The very first day of class, I informed my professor of my intention of doing my research project on Robespierre (half in the hope that he would assign me Robespierre’s character for the Reacting to the Past role-playing game that would consume most of the semester—he did not). I did some cursory research, seeking out a couple new-ish books that had been written about him and his sister’s memoirs (I had been looking for his memoirs, having both extensively used a historical figure's memoirs for a project in a previous class with the same professor and foolishly forgotten about that whole execution bit). What I found was completely contrary to my expectations. The Robespierre within the pages of the first scholarly book I picked up was not a tyrant. He was not a proto-Hitler or a proto-Stalin. He was much more similar to my initial imagining (though Arras is in the north, not the south, and he was a Montagnard, a splinter group of the Jacobins, not a Girondin) than to my high school teacher’s interpretation. Suddenly, Robespierre became legitimate, my interest in Robespierre became legitimate, my admiration of Robespierre became something that was plausibly acceptable. I wrote a defense of Robespierre for my project. 

I spoke about him to anyone and everyone who would listen. I allowed myself soak in the interest more than six years repressed. It consumed me. I typed his name in Google just to see anything, everything that popped up. I read books more than a hundred years old, less than ten years old. I read his speeches. I read his letters. I read gay fanfiction. I learned the names and personalities of his friends and his enemies. I learned about their wives. I watched films, both good and bad—mostly in French. I saved portraits of him to my phone. I took a selfie with a copy of the portrait that was in my history textbook while at the Deutsches Geschichtes Museum in Berlin. I nearly cried being so close to my hero, even if it was a fake portrait of what may very well have been a fake portrait, or at least one not taken from life.

When I returned to the United States, I continued my research. I began writing a sentimental and clichéd story about him. The story changed from day to day as my understanding of the sources grew and deepened. When I needed an additional class to finish my history major, my advisor suggested that I do an independent study on him. I was uncertain—so many people had expressed a certain level of disbelief in my newly enlightened view of him. Would there be anyone who would want to work with me on the project without shooting down my premise immediately? What if there was a crucial piece of evidence that I was missing that would refute everything I had so recently come to think? Worst of all, what if I was blinded by my affection and was unable to see the facts that were plainly before my eyes. There were still questions that, when asked, I could not readily answer. I did the research in a coherent manner. There were still questions to which I did not know the answers. There were theories which I had not yet done the research to prove or disprove. There were gaping holes in the source base which will probably never be filled. There was always the possibility that I was defending a monster. At least, I knew where that possibility lay and I could come to terms with that. At least I knew that he never said, “You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.” But even if I did not know this, even if I could not accept it, I don’t think I could have turned back anymore. After more than a year, I hadn’t gone a single day without thinking about him, even when I had no reason to think about him, even when I shouldn’t have been thinking about him, even when I wished I could stop. I think I might have been tempted to do something horrifically stupid if he were not a pile of bones in a restricted section of the Paris Catacombs.

Years passed. The passion faded like a well-worn tattoo. I came to terms with the fact that, even if the academic field was slowly turning toward a more positive view (only to make a U-turn back to the negative, and then change its mind and think positively, and now sinks back into negativity, back and forth, back and forth as it always has, as it always will), his is not a name you mention around people you do not know well. No matter how well informed your sources are. No matter how passionately you feel. People will regard you as a freak for having a positive view of the man unless you are trolling the corners of the internet where you can find, without trying, without wanting to, Robespierrist pigeon sex. 

Needless to say, I did not expect to find myself here. I did not expect to be living in Paris, sitting at my table, and staring over the top of my computer screen at my uninvited roommate. I did not expect to be admiring the mole on his temple as he reads Jules Verne, unaware of my gaze. I did not expect to pack up the books collected over a near decade and hide them under my bed like a child where I hope he will never ever find them. I did not expect to be possessed by a consuming desire to kiss those shapely lips which are almost eternally cocked in what one scholar described as a smile waiting to be born, or something similar. 

He thinks that I am writing a report for work but I have been typing nonsense for two hours now, watching him as he appreciates his first taste of science fiction. He looks so much different from the image in my history book. His dark hair is tousled; he runs his fingers through it almost compulsively now that he does not have to be concerned about perukes and powder. His green eyes, which I still love now that I have seen them in person, are framed by rectangular, black glasses—very modern. He has finally come to accept that it is permitted for him to put his feet on the sofa and he does so very self-consciously, his bare toes buried under the decorative pillow at the far end.

Have I mentioned how much I want to kiss him? I want to do other things to him, too, but I don’t let my mind go there, not consciously. Imagining explicit scenarios with a historical figure somehow feels morally corrupt. It feels especially so because of the conspicuous lack of sexual evidence within the source material for Robespierre. Then again, it isn’t as though he will ever know about these thoughts. Is it really any different from thinking things about a particularly attractive actor? When he is sitting across the room from me, yes. Unequivocally, yes. I am going to hell. Or, well, I would be if I believed in that. 

Why do I have to be like this? Why are my affections always turned toward a man born two hundred sixty…five years ago? Why couldn’t I just like some nice modern boy with the same values as me? Who wasn’t executed for treason? Who might plausibly like me back? Who won’t vanish back into the past someday? Why am I moaning over this like a teenager?

“Maxime?” I say, drawing his attention up from his book.

“Hm?” is his response.

“Do you want to go out for lunch? Get some fresh air?” 

He considers this a moment, his eyes focused on nothing in particular. “I suppose it is rather stuffy in here.”

“They don’t call it Thermidor for nothing,” I reply under my breath, regretting immediately that the words physically emerged from my mouth.

“Hm?” he asks, having heard me speak but not having understood the words.

“Oh,” I say. “Nothing. Just that this is the hottest part of the year, after all.” I force a weak laugh, which may only make him more suspicious. 

Even if I could say it without completely risking the past, present, and future, I do not think that I would have the heart to tell Maxime that today is the anniversary of his death.


End file.
